Context Posts

Peshat: Beyond “Literalism” Reading Scripture with Context and Meaning When you hear that peshat means the “plain sense” or literal meaning of Scripture, you might assume it refers to a quick, surface-level reading. In Jewish tradition, however, pe…

Literary Structure: Why the Bible Is Built the Way It Is One of the most overlooked signals in Scripture is not the words themselves… …but how those words are arranged. We tend to read the Bible as a collection of verses. But the biblical author…

Implicit vs. Explicit Meaning: Why We Miss What Scripture Is Doing One of the biggest reasons Scripture gets misunderstood is that we’ve been trained to only trust what is explicit.  If it’s not clearly stated, directly commanded, or plainly explai…

The Context of Tension, Part One We have often talked a lot of about context and why it matters in the Bible.  When you are aware of it, it makes the story come alive and more importantly, we are able to reference it as it was intended.  Too many t…

Famine: When Context Starves, So Does the Church Some themes in Scripture carry what I call layered significance—layers that push far beyond the basic who, what, when, where, and why.  These layers often make up an explanation of context that go f…

The Five W's of Biblical Context—Plus the Hidden Layers Most People Miss Getting the context conviction is a long journey.  This is not a one and done lesson.  Any church that teaches a Sunday sermon on this topic and calls it complete is missing o…

The Told Principle You may have heard about "The Told Principle" in episode three of our podcast.  Or maybe you are just now stumbling upon this principle now. The told principle is taught to us at an early age.  We go to school and we are taught …